Distributed Presence TM

Great Read on "How Blogs Drive More Sales than Social Media Sites"

Check-out this article by Heidi Cohen, a writer on the ClickZ Network.  She provides terrific insight into "How Blogs Drive More Sales than Social Media Sites."

Fundamentals Series: Search Engine Optimization

Continuing my Digital Marketing Fundamentals Series, I’ve added a few marketing insights with regard to Search Engine Optimization. Note that key to SEO is an SEM strategy that is complementary. Companies need to be realistic in the SEO efforts and know that they may be able to achieve better Search program results by redirecting their Search budgets from SEO to SEM.

As always, begin your program with a Search strategy and be sure to measure and optimize your program. The below outlines some fundamentals to improve your site’s organic search results across multiple search engines.

Keywords: Select key words should be placed in title tags, meta tags, alt tags, text links body copy on each page of the site. Site should focus on 3 to 4 keywords per page for optimization.

Copywriting: Site content should be written with two audiences in mind: 1. Target Consumer, 2. Search Engine Spiders that index sites. Text blocks and paragraphs should be led with headlines with keyword-rich copy.

Linking: Site linking strategy should focus on inbound, outbound and on-site links. Inbound Links: Quality of links matter over quantity. Links should be acquired consistently, not all at once. Plan to work with referring domains so that links are formatted using keywords and embedded in external content. Outbound Links:  Plan to use keyword-rich anchor text for links leaving the site. On-site Links: The site should be designed with adequate link navigation between all top-level and keyword-rich content pages. Always consider creating a site-wide site map with content and links for all site pages to facilitate optimization.

Creative Execution: Search Engine Spiders cannot index text or audio that lives in images, Flash components or media files. Therefore, develop spider-friendly and keyword-rich HTML content that will live on the same page as the Flash files. Additionally, avoid using images to render text, where possible, so that keywords can be indexed. Note that alt text on images do not receive as much weight from spiders as plain text rendered in HTML.

Development: Development guidelines should be created and shared with site developers so that code is optimized for spiders. Optimization tactics should include; meta tags (titles, descriptions, keywords)- though meta data does not receive as much weight as they used to, Using HTML with proper title tags, heading tags and alt attributes that are given more weight by spiders, use flat directory structures in Web applications as spiders view content as less relevant the deeper it lives on the site.

Measurement: Post-launch benchmarking is critical to ongoing site optimization. Once in market, reports should be generated to demonstrate site ranking compared to competitor site rankings across selected keywords. As part of the ongoing maintenance of the site the site will be optimized according to best practices to demonstrate improvements in keyword rankings.

Fundamentals Series: Measurement, Testing & Optimization

Don't forget about Measurement, Analytics, Testing and Optimization. Consumer experience optimization is critical to overall program performance. Effective digital marketers continuously analyze, report and make optimization recommendations to their clients. It's easy to understand "what" the consumer is doing through quantitative data, but relating that to "why" the consumer is doing something requires qualitative testing. A good marketer then forms a hypothesis and tests the hypothesis through split or multivariate testing in order to optimize the consumer experience.

The below diagram will help you to better understand what I've described above.

   

Four Great Books

Below is a list of four great books that I recommend for any digital marketer:

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Social Media Marketing, by Dave Evans
Web Analytics, by Avinash Kaushik
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky

Will the REAL mobile "Game Changer" please stand up?

During the past 6 months, I've been using the iPhone for work email, calendaring, contacts, etc. This was my second go-round with the iPhone, both times switching from my beloved Blackberry. Each switch was primarily perpetuated by the "coolness" factor of the touch screen itself.

When I first purchased the iPhone, I was amazed by the technology and absorbed all of the expert commentary that called it a game changer in a category that seemed to be stagnant for more than a few years. After using it for awhile, the coolness factor wore off as I became frustrated with the poor phone quality, synchronization issues and, yes, touchscreen typing. I often summarized all of the above to people by telling them that the iPhone was just not ready for primetime; then I would follow-up kiddingly with something clever like "yeah, Primetime just thinks that it's too hard to type..." Silly yes, but my choice to switch back to the Blackberry was a serious one.

With the launch of the iPhone v2.0, I became excited about the possibilities with Apple's release of their SDK and access to the iPhone's accelerometer. It's shocking how quickly I left my prior frustrations behind and raced back to the Apple camp. I told myself that as a digital marketer, I "needed" to use the new platform and experience the bevy of new applications myself in order to really understand it; y'know to provide better advice to my clients. Though, after months of incessant frustration with the iPhone, namely MobileMe synchronization issues and that damn touchscreen keyboard, I have finally given-up on it. This weekend I switched to the Blackberry Bold; primarily due to the stability of synchronization and the mechanical keyboard. Yes, I was very briefly tempted by the coming Blackberry Storm, but I'm just not convinced that their touchscreen will be any better than Apple's. My only reservation was leaving behind all of the Apple applications that I enjoyed; though most didn't provide my life with any genuine utility.

So, what does this all have to do with digital marketing? Here goes:

Mobile provides yet another platform for distributing a brand's presence; reaching target consumers with targeted messaging where they live and work. From my research, I've determined that consumers view the Internet as a utility, no different than electricity, natural gas and water. They don't think about how the Internet works or that they're going online to do something, it's just there for them and they go about their lives. That said, consumers are increasingly accessing the Internet on their mobile devices, but still don't think about it too much; they just want what they want, when they want it. Where does digital marketing fit into the mobile landscape? Currently, there are quite a few opportunities to reach consumers via their mobile devices: display media, WAP sites, SMS/Text/MMS messaging and/or promotions, search, audio/video AND installed applications. All tactics are important elements in the digital marketer's toolbox, however, the latter is likely the largest untapped opportunity and holds the greatest potential for brands reaching and frequently interacting with their target consumers. The iPhone has made significant advances by opening their platform to developers who are developing all kinds of useful and not so useful applications. However, Apple's iPhone penetration rate among corporate users is minimal, which is largely the reason for brands lack of enthusiasm for developing branded applications for the iPhone. You can easily see this by quickly scanning Apple's App Store; most of the top applications are games; not utilities or brand/product applications.

This leaves an enormous opportunity for Blackberry. Blackberry has a captive audience and a platform that reaches millions of Blackberry obsessed consumers everyday. To date, RIM has done a poor job with allowing developers with complete access to their development platform, which has resulted in lackluster applications, web widgets and icon-based bookmarks that have very little branding and utility.

So, I ask the question, with regard to digital marketing, is the iPhone or the Blackberry the real game changer and which device has the greatest potential? Unfortunately, at this point, both leaders in the smart-phone space remain seated. The reason? The iPhone doesn't have the penetration rates or the potential to beat Blackberry with corporate users. I just don't see corporate IT groups handing-out iPhones to their employees anytime soon. Conversely, Blackberry doesn't yet have the open platform to allow agencies to develop anything beyond a simple bookmark or widget.

Agencies and brands are more than anxious to tap this market, however, RIM must lead the way. Until then, I'll be on my Blackberry using web widgets and bookmarks while trying to convince my clients that a real mobile game changer is on the way.

Blogger Influence Marketing

Recently, I read an article about Hewlett Packard's "31 Days of Dragon" blogger promotion that achieved significant results. Basically, HP ran a promotion for 31 days where they gave top bloggers a $5,100 HP HDX Dragon Notebook computer to give away to their readers. HP did little to define the actual promotion for these bloggers, they only required that the bloggers give the machine away to one of their readers in a fair manner. The results of their 250K promotion was astonishing: The program was credited with an 84% increase in sales of the unit, a 10% increase in overall HP PC sales and a 14% increase in traffic to HPshopping.com. Further, the program also benefited the bloggers: The program created strong online buzz that was reflected in 400,000 Google searches that were specific to the product/contest name. Site traffic to these key bloggers increased between 150 to 5,000% during the contest.

So, this got me to thinking about a framework or marketing process that can be employed to achieve similar results.

Below I've defined "Blogger Influence Marketing" and provided details into this framework to assist those that are interested in tapping this influential group of authors.

Blogger Influence Marketing is...

A systematic approach or process where organizations actively solicit and engage online bloggers or key influencers for the purpose of obtaining a predetermined marketing objective.  Further, it provides the brand with the opportunity to engage with their target consumer through trusted and credible communications platforms, which influences purchase decision.  Programs or campaigns often include prepackaged marketing material, products, contests, promotions, giveaways, etc. that are provided to key bloggers who then execute the programs at a fraction of the price that it would cost the brand to execute the program on their own.

High-level steps to execute a Blogger Influence Marketing Campaign

1. Identify opportunity: Example could include to generate awareness of a new product launch among target consumers

2. Define marketing objectives and success measures: objectives should be clear and focused

3. Develop marketing program/campaign

4. Define program; rules and parameters

    - Develop marketing collateral and supporting elements (i.e. microsites, gadgets, widgets, etc.)

    - Identify program execution tactics and schedule

5. Identify and solicit Bloggers or key influencers for program participation

6. Execute program

7. Measure, report results, benchmark